Accusations of corruption

Canada’s Parliament is seized with one of the biggest—and most costly—corruption scandals in Canadian history.

It involves a federal government agency, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, inappropriately awarding nearly $400 million to board members who were appointed by Liberal ministers. Now, those board members have been found to have been in conflict of interest.

This is quickly becoming known as the “Green Slush Fund" corruption scandal.

The Auditor General of Canada recently conducted an audit by request of federal government whistleblowers who came forward with multiple concerns. The AG found the SDTC board shockingly approved 186 projects in which board members held a conflict of interest. In other words, they approved giving taxpayer funds to their own organizations.

In addition, the AG determined $58 million went to 10 ineligible projects that, on occasions, could not demonstrate an environmental benefit or development of green technology – which are key requirements to receive funding.

While 405 transactions were approved by SDTC in the last five years, the AG only sampled 226, of which 82% were found to have conflict of interest. If the remaining unaudited transactions represented the same percentage of conflicts, this could represent $832 million of inappropriate funding.

This is an egregious example of government ministers and the federal government showing a lack of ethical oversight, governance, and management practices. It could perhaps even involve criminal wrongdoings.
To look back, SDTC was created in 2001 to invest in Canadian environmentally friendly technologies. Under the stewardship of past governments, including the former Conservative government, SDTC operated without issue. The AG even gave SDTC a clean bill of health in 2017.

In 2018, the minister at the time pushed out the existing SDTC board chair who was critical of government legislation. The minister then appointed a new chair, an entrepreneur who was already receiving government funding through one of her companies.

It has been revealed conflicts of interest were known about but the minister still went ahead with the appointment. Following that, board members hand-picked by the government began voting themselves to receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Senior department officials within Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada said nothing while attending board meetings and witnessing the activities and decisions.

Eventually, whistleblowers came forward to speak up about this corruption, leading to the AG’s damning report. Furthermore, the ethics commissioner ruled the SDTC board chair broke the law. A whistleblower who testified at a parliamentary committee stated knowing what they know, there could very well be grounds for criminal charges.
The corruption at SDTC is astonishing and what is making it worse, is that the government is actively trying to cover up what happened.

The will of Parliament, as voted by opposition parties in June, called for unredacted documents to be given to the RCMP. That is so the RCMP can have all information for potential investigations into criminality regarding SDTC.

The government, however, is refusing to hand over these unredacted documents. Because of that, the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled the Liberals violated the supreme will of parliament, breaking “parliamentary privilege.” In other words, the government in is contempt of Parliament – something very serious.
This situation has eerie similarities to when the Liberals violated the privilege of parliamentarians when parliament explicitly demanded unredacted documents to be turned over related to the firing of two scientists at Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory, reportedly involving national security concerns.

The government was also held in contempt of Parliament then. During that scandal, the prime minister took the unprecedented step of suing the Speaker of the House of Commons to block the documents’ release. He then called the 2021 snap election, in an attempt to coverup the whole affair.

Not releasing the SDTC documents has paralyzed Parliament, making it impossible for MPs to address important issues like the doubling of housing costs, the cost of living crisis or increasing crime while parliament is stalemated waiting for the government to follow the orders.

This does not serve Canadians well. They deserve transparency with taxpayer funds. People need to be held to account for conflicts and misdoings, regardless of their position in government.

In my five years as an MP, this was the first time I debated an issue regarding the government being held in contempt of Parliament. It helped me further acknowledge the significance and importance of this issue as I represent our community in the House of Commons.
My Conservative colleagues and I will continue to press the government on this important issue.

I'd like to hear from you:

Are you concerned about the 186 instances of conflict of interest breaches at SDTC found by the auditor general?

Please reach out to 250-470-5075 or tracy.gray@parl.gc.ca if have any thoughts to share – on this issue or others - or if you need assistance with any federal programs.

Tracy Gray is the Conservative MP for Kelowna-Lake Country.

(Editor's note: At the request of the author, the original question posed in this column has been changed.)

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.